Experimentation key to regain form: Anand to Dravid

World chess champion Viswanathan Anand on Friday felt out-of-form Rahul Dravid ought to experiment with his technique to regain lost touch.

Written by Press Trust of India

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New Delhi:

World chess champion Viswanathan Anand on Friday felt out-of-form Rahul Dravid ought to experiment with his technique to regain lost touch.

Anand said he had first hand experience of losing form and overcoming it in his initial days and could empathise with the former India captain.

The chess ace said he was shocked to discover that he just could not strike form in the 2000 Dortmund tournament after a successful run that year.

"Once I started doing badly I thought of drawing my remaining games," Anand said, hinting that the defensive strategy did not work.

"What I did after Dortmund was that I kept on experimenting for 7-8 months. In that period also I could not really recover as I was experimenting only randomly. It was just very difficult. (But) perhaps that will help him recover faster," he said in reply to a query.

Anand, who recently defeated Russia's Vladimir Kramnik to retain his World Championship title in Bonn, Germany, was visiting the capital for the first time after his extraordinary feat of winning the honour in all three formats of game -- knock-out, round-robin and matchplay.

Anand, requested to say a few words about former cricket captain Sourav Ganguly, playing the last first-class game, said, "It must be funny to know this is your last match. (Garry) Kasparov had said the same thing. The rest of the world would be looking back but you have to sit and play or stand and play in his (Ganguly's) case," he said.

"It's an end to a wonderful career, which he could justifiably be proud of," Anand added.

On his interaction with current India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni in Chennai during the felicitation ceremony organised by the All India Chess Federation, Anand said he perceived the cricketer as very "warm" and "playful".

Anand was presented a diamond ring by Dhoni on behalf of the AICF.

"It was a brief meeting. But I think he was very playful. Before he presented the ring to me he said 'I hope Bhabhi (Aruna) will allow me to present you this ring'.

"He came across as a very warm person," he added.

Asked what he told Dhoni, the World Champion in Twenty20 cricket, Anand said, "just two words -- 'Good Luck'. Because it was a very brief interaction".